Suspect killed after more than 10 killed in riot in Canada

PORTAPIQUE, Nova Scotia: An armed man in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia killed at least 16 people, including a female police officer, during a 12-hour rampage on Sunday (April 19), in the worst mass murder act that the country has seen in more than 30 years

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the gunman, Gabriel Wortman, 51, who was working as a dentist, appeared to be on a stage wearing part of the police uniform. He had also painstakingly disguised his car to look like a police cruiser.

Wortman shot people in various locations in the Atlantic province, police said at a briefing, saying the death toll was more than 10.

Brenda Lucki, who heads the RCMP nationwide, later told Canadian Broadcasting Corp that Wortman killed at least 16 people.

Police added that they had ended the threat that Wortman, who was dead, posed, but would not confirm a report by the CTV network that the RCMP had shot him.

One of the victims was RCMP officer Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year-old service veteran with two children.

Police said there was no apparent link between Wortman and at least some of his victims. They said they had no idea what their motivation might have been.

“Today is a devastating day for Nova Scotia, and it will remain etched in our minds for many years to come,” Lee Bergerman, commander of the RCMP in Nova Scotia, told reporters. The murdered female police officer was an RCMP officer.

The massacre was the worst of its kind in Canada since a gunman killed 15 women in Montreal in December 1989. Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has stricter gun control laws than the United States.

Nova Scotia, like the rest of Canada, is under an order to stay home due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Police discovered the killings late Saturday after reports of shooting at a house in the small coastal town of Portapique, about 130 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Halifax.

“When the police arrived on the scene, members located several victims inside and outside the home,” said Chris Leather, the Nova Scotia RCMP criminal operations officer.

Several buildings in the city were on fire and the police exchanged fire at one point with Wortman. Probes later revealed that he had also killed people in various other locations.

“We are not fully aware of what (the) total could be,” Leather said.

At one juncture Saturday night, Wortman “appears to have been wearing, if not all, a part of the police uniform,” Leather said. But he did not specify whether the suspect had been disguised as an officer when the killings occurred.

“The fact that this individual had a uniform and a police car at his disposal certainly speaks to the fact that it is not a random act,” Leather said.

“WE LISTEN TO WEAPONS”

According to the websites of the Nova Scotia Society of Dentists and the province’s Better Business Bureau, Wortman operated a prosthetic clinic in Dartmouth, near Halifax.

In response to a question, Leather said police would look for a possible link to the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced the closure of nonessential businesses.

Portapique residents said the first sign of trouble occurred Saturday night when police urged everyone to stay indoors. One man said he saw at least three separate fires.

A local resident said he had found two burning police vehicles while driving Sunday.

“There was an officer that we could see at the scene and suddenly he ran out to one of the burning vehicles,” Darcy Sack told CBC.

“We hear gunshots,” he added. Television images from Portapique showed two burning vehicles on a highway.

Nova Scotia Prime Minister Stephen McNeil denounced “one of the most senseless acts of violence in the history of our province.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would help Scotland’s rookies “as they recover from this tragedy.”